Duties and Promises

These promises to our clients have been “standard’ since our start, 3000 buyer families and more than 20 years ago;
Included here:
- Our Commitment to Clients
- Using our Resources is Not a Commitment
- Promises of Client Level Service
- Privacy Promises
- VIP Service to Everyone
- Our “We Won’t Do” Pledge
Our Commitment to Clients; our mission is to provide exceptional real estate buyers service with care, uncompromising honesty and integrity…that which we would want for ourselves or our family if we were buying a home in a distant land. To consistently enable this level of service, we strongly felt we had to “choose sides”, and so serve only the buyers’ side of every transaction, eliminating therefore, all potential for confliction.
With that as the cornerstone, we also developed a superior body of processes and resources, utilizing the combined experience of our professional staff, all vowing only the best service possible. That includes ultimate hospitality and an atmosphere of comfort, concern and confidence.
We are a real estate agency or brokerage, staffed with licensed agents and brokers. We have the same privileges as other more traditional agencies and agents, and we have the same access to the multiple listing service (and more, as we’ll show elsewhere.) We have simply adopted an alternative, non-traditional business model….all without additional costs. TOP
Using our Resources is Not Considered a Commitment to Use of Our Services:
Please know that the use of our resources, internet and otherwise, does not commit clients to the use of our buying services. That doesn’t happen until you say so. And it could be tentative….until you’ve had a chance to see us face to face and have your expectations confirmed.
But we do offer the use of our resources, as freely as we can, to support the critical accumulation of information, long before buyers come to town, (and so, before commitments.)
But our support can be immensely enhanced if can learn more about your family and your needs. Even the delivery of that information to us is not considered a commitment…it simply helps us serve you better. The few questionnaires or profiles we have on our sites can therefore be very helpful to us….again without commitments.
Or a few timely phone calls can help immensely. But we place you in control of communication. If you say we should limit conversation to email, we’ll honor that, (remembering our duty of “obedience”, below.) If there’s uncertainty about the choice of a realty agency, we always recommend interviews when you get to town, and love to so compete.
All that said, we’re in business to support home finding efforts with premium
service, so we do hope to earn the privilege to serve you, or just to stay in contention for that privilege. (The writer here, Merrill Ottwein, is assigned the general management of pre-servicing of future clients, the old(er) fellow in the pictures. Please never, ever hesitate to call and chat, or send a question in an email.
But as a small band intending the best professional service possible, our dance cards stay pretty full, and we can’t promise one-on-one service to more than one client family at a time. So we do encourage reservations as early as possible, even if they’re tentative. Mercy, do we hate to turn down business, but it happens! TOP
Promises of Client Level Service:
This agency is the only exclusive buyers agency in southwestern Illinois. That business model enables it to provide “Client Level Services”, (as opposed to “Customer Level Services”,) a level of service above that which the law requires.
Here we promise these client-level duties (“Fiduciary Duties”) defined by the acronym, “Carload”:
C Confidentiality….even after the closing
A Accountability
R Reasonable care and diligence
L Loyalty….undivided
O Obedience….to any lawful order
A Accountability
D Disclosure….full and total
Obviously most of these promises, taken seriously, cannot be given to but one party in a transaction. Our whole relationship with home buyers is profoundly changed.
Buyers become “clients” instead of “customers”. It’s like relating to a lawyer, or an accountant, or a doctor…all of which call their patrons “clients”. It’s the hallmark professional services. Attorneys have developed strict rules where their firms never represent both sides of a legal issue. We believe home buyers should be entitled to the same protection….the foundation of our business model.
(We become “consultants” to the process instead of “salesmen”. In fact, it’s not our objective ever to “sell” anything to our clients. Instead, it’s to help them buy only what they need to buy, free of potential conflicts or hidden agendas on the part of our agency.)
We promise client level service without exception. TOP
Privacy Pledge: Nothing is shared with anybody unless you authorize it! Pretty simple. (Remember, one of our fiduciary duties is “confidentiality”....forever. (That's even after a closing; this duty survives the closing and lasts forever. ) TOP
VIP Service to Everyone:
We understand that some realty firms offer “Premium VIP Service”, almost as an option. Here, we promise “Premium VIP Service” to every buyer….just so you know!

* Or..."Buying Your Castle Without a Hassle"! *
Many surveys have been made of home buyer dislikes.....
Those results are consistent with our personal "don't like" lists as well, whenever we purchase goods and services anywhere.
So this is intended to define our service from the other direction...pledges of things we WON'T do...behavior that nobody likes to deal with:
At Home Buyers Relocation Services, YOU WON'T HAVE....
1) Consideration of any interests but yours...no hidden agendas
2) Exceptions in our loyalty to you, or in serving your interests exclusively
3) Misdirection, misleading, or deception of any kind.
4) Withholding of information or options from review.
5) Known untruths, even if it isn't good news.
6) Opinions that aren't qualified as to source and soundness.
7) And finally, "no hustling", for lack of a better word....no decisions hustled before you're ready to make them, supported with adequate data and your own conclusions.
* We were looking for an analogy here equal to "Selling No Wine Before Its Time" and the best we could come up with is our headline. ..."Buying Your Castle Without a Hassle"! It's a little weak, but you'll get the point!
If there are any questions about the above, please don’t hesitate to ask about them. TOP
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